Monday, April 17, 2023

Nona the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

It took me forever to read this book. Superlative and plot overload. There is so much going on, and I was able to relate some of it back to the earlier books but the whole thing just never did resolve and make sense to me. Could have to do with it being kind of an impromptu book wedged in between Harrow and Alecto. Nona is kind of a cute character, but I was really distracted trying to relate what she was narrating, and what the others were doing, back to Gideon and Harrow. Gideon Nav appears but is really someone else (happens a lot) and Harrow might be appearing? "Dead" is a term of art, dead people walk around and act pretty much like anyone else (except in John's interludes, which are the most interesting part of the book since they give it a little structure)(are we on Earth for this one?), and the word and idea are used so much, with so many different kinds of fairly animate people, that the word loses its meaning.

Layered snark also loses its effect with repeated use. Again, the other books push the line in interesting ways, but this one just goes over.

There are complex plots and there are confusing ones, and it's a fine line an author has to walk to write a book like this. The other two in the series just barely pulled it off for me, and this one just didn't.

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